Kate Channing carried herself with the commanding presence of someone who had spent twenty-five years climbing the FBI's ranks through a combination of brilliance and sheer force of will.At fifty-five, she could have been riding a desk in Washington, playing politics and eyeing the deputy director's chair.Instead, she'd chosen to run the Duluth field office, trading power for the kind of hands-on work that had drawn her to law enforcement in the first place.
Isla respected that choice.Admired it, even.Kate had been in her corner since the beginning of the LSK investigation, fighting for resources and manpower when Washington wanted to write off Duluth's "accident" victims as statistical noise.
"What about the surrounding area?"Isla asked."The scrapyard to the north, the old cannery buildings?"
"US Marshals are taking point on the outer perimeter.They've got forty agents on the ground, plus local PD support."Kate zoomed out on the tablet, showing the search grid they'd established."It's the biggest coordinated search operation this region has seen in twenty years.If Brune is anywhere in this area, we'll find him."
If.Isla didn't miss the conditional.They'd been so certain, two months ago, that Robert Brune would be in custody within days.His face had been everywhere—news broadcasts, wanted posters, social media campaigns that reached millions.He was sixty-five years old, a lifetime fisherman with no obvious resources for extended flight, no family to shelter him, no network of criminal contacts to help him disappear.
And yet he'd vanished like smoke.
"Agent Rivers?"A young Marshal approached, tablet in hand."Teams are in position.Ready to begin on your signal."
Isla looked out at the shipyard, at the rusted bones of an industry that had built Duluth and was slowly dying along with the dreams of the people who'd depended on it.Somewhere in this maze of metal and neglect, Robert Brune had found a hiding place.Had lived and eaten and slept while the world searched for him.Had walked among the ghosts of his former life until one of those ghosts turned out to be a living man who recognized his face.
"Begin the search," she said.
The teams moved in.
CHAPTER THREE
The coffee had gone cold three hours ago.
Isla stared at the mug on her desk, its contents a lukewarm reminder that she'd been at work since before dawn.Before dawn yesterday, technically.At some point the days had started bleeding together, marked only by shift changes and briefing updates and the relentless, maddening absence of results.
Forty-eight hours.They'd been searching for forty-eight hours, and they had nothing.
No sign of Robert Brune.No evidence of recent habitation in any of the buildings they'd cleared.No witnesses who'd seen anyone matching his description.The scrapyard had yielded a few abandoned camps—homeless shelters, from the look of them, hastily vacated when the search teams arrived—but nothing that pointed to their suspect.The shipping containers they'd opened were empty or filled with legitimate cargo.The warehouses held dust and silence and the echoes of better days.
He was here.Isla pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to push back the exhaustion that had been building for days.Three weeks ago, he was here.He killed Mitch Connelly, dumped the body, and then...what?Vanished into thin air?
The rational part of her mind—the part that had survived FBI Academy training and a decade of field work and the particular crucible of the Miami disaster—knew that killers didn't actually vanish.They moved.They adapted.They found new hiding places when the old ones became dangerous.Robert Brune had seen his coworker's face and known his sanctuary was compromised.He'd killed to protect himself, then relocated somewhere else.Somewhere outside the search grid.
But that rational part of her mind was getting harder to hear beneath the static of exhaustion and frustration.
"You look like hell."
Isla dropped her hands to find James standing in the doorway of her office, two fresh coffees in hand.He was wearing the same flannel shirt he'd had on yesterday—or maybe the day before; she'd lost track—but he'd clearly showered and shaved.He looked almost human.
She probably looked like something the lake had coughed up.
"Thanks," she said dryly."That's just what every woman wants to hear."
"I brought caffeine."He set one of the cups on her desk, steam curling from the lid."The good stuff, from that place on Fifth.Figured you could use it."
The gesture was so typically James—practical, thoughtful, completely devoid of fanfare—that Isla felt something crack in her chest.She wrapped her hands around the cup, letting the warmth seep into her fingers.
"How long have you been here?"he asked, settling into the chair across from her desk.
"What time is it?"
"Eight-twelve."
Isla tried to remember when she'd arrived.Before the first search team check-in, which had been at four.Before the overnight briefing with the Marshals, which had ended around two."A while."
James's expression didn't change, but she could see the concern gathering behind his eyes.The slight furrow between his brows.The way his hands tightened around his own coffee cup.
"Isla—"